Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth
was one of the most unlikely success stories of underground American rock in
the '80s. Where contemporaries R.E.M. and Hüsker Dü were fairly conventional in
terms of song structure and melody, Sonic Youth began their career by
abandoning any pretense of traditional rock & roll conventions. Borrowing
heavily from the free-form noise experimentalism of the Velvet Underground and
the Stooges, and melding it with a performance art aesthetic borrowed from the
New York post-punk avant-garde, Sonic Youth redefined what noise meant within
rock & roll. Sonic Youth rarely rocked, though they were inspired directly
by hardcore punk, post-punk, and no wave.

Instead, their dissonance, feedback,
and alternate tunings created a new sonic landscape, one that redefined what
rock guitar could do. Their trio of independent late-'80s records -- EVOL,
Sister, Daydream Nation -- became touchstones for a generation of indie rockers
who either replicated the noise or reinterpreted it in a more palatable
setting. As their career progressed, Sonic Youth grew more palatable as well,
as their more free-form songs began to feel like compositions and their shorter
works began to rock harder. During the '90s, most American indie bands, and
many British underground bands, displayed a heavy debt to Sonic Youth, and the
group itself had become a popular cult band, with each of its albums charting
in the Top 100. allmusicguide